


Father Son Bonding Time

by starlitcatastrophe (inky_starlight)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inky_starlight/pseuds/starlitcatastrophe
Summary: Series of AU starts where Vader is reunited with his child (or children.) Strongly inspired by both sparklight's "Where Our Intrepid Hero Doesn't Get Away" and madre13's "The Kidnappings of a Sith Lord"Changed the rating to T after re-reading some of the stories and what other people had rated similar stories!
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Comments: 50
Kudos: 294





	1. Prince and Princess

**Author's Note:**

> This is where my running chapter index/summary list will be.
> 
> 1\. Prince and Princess - Vader finds out about the true origins of Luke and Leia Organa, the eight year old prince and princess of Alderaan.
> 
> 2\. Falling- ESB au, Bespin goes a little differently. (Warning for canon-typical descriptions of torture)
> 
> 3\. Summer- I don't know what this is, honestly. A product of me watching Midsommar too many times. (minor character death)
> 
> 4\. In which there's an uprising on Tatooine- Luke learns who his father was when he's a little younger, and decides to do something
> 
> 5\. Where Darth Vader has a revelation on the Death Star- Darth Vader is standing behind a troublesome young senator when he realizes something. 
> 
> 6.In which there is a haunting- Luke goes to investigate an abandoned Jedi temple and gets more than he planned for. (Halloween 2020 fic)
> 
> 7\. Where there's a monster- continuation of chapter 6. 
> 
> 8\. Where there's comfort even at Bespin- another ESB, Bespin, au

“No, you will not take them!” 

Bail Organa had been all the way three levels down in the front hall when he’d said those words, but Luke and Leia had both bolted up out of bed as if he’d been in their suite. 

They looked at each other and nodded simultaneously, knowing, somehow just knowing, their adoptive father was referring to them. Whoever he was talking to, it wasn’t good. It didn’t matter what the source was: senate or off-worlders or, they shuddered to think, Imperial; whether it was legitimate or not, it was bad. The palace of Alderaan had many hiding places, which normally the twins used only for games or to give their tutors a hard time, but now they’d have to use them for the very purpose the paranoid king who’d built the palace had envisioned. 

Leia flipped the switch near their bookshelf, hidden in the fake molding around the edge, and the bookshelf swung forward on a hinge to reveal a secret door. The two of them scrambled inside the passage and closed the bookshelf door behind them quietly. The passage filled with a soft glow, just enough so that they could see each other and the way in front of them. They knew these passages as well as the actual halls of the palace, and the passage from their bedroom let out into the second floor library where they usually met their tutors. From there they could get more of an idea of what was happening and possibly sneak across the hall to their mother’s favorite sitting room that overlooked the palace gardens. They could creep down the trellis and get out of the palace grounds completely. 

Leia had had time to put on house shoes, but neither one of them had a robe. Their night clothes were thin and the passage was cold from the lack of outside air. Both of them shivered as they moved, walking as lightly as possible on the balls of their feet to avoid making noise. Part of the passage went over the front hall, and the last thing they wanted to do was give any indication that they were somewhere it should be impossible for them to be. 

“Lord Vader” a voice addressed, muffled through the wall. “The children are not in their rooms.” 

Luke and Leia both froze, looking at each other with wide eyes. Darth Vader… Darth Vader and the Imperials were looking for them. 

“Search the palace. They’re here.” 

“Leave them alone, Vader,” they heard their father plead. “You have no right to-“

“You know perfectly well I have every right.” 

After that they could hear voices, but not distinct words, as they kept moving through the passage and past the front hall. 

When they arrived at the door to the library, for a moment they just sat there, listening. They couldn’t hear anything in the library, but through the thick hidden door that didn’t necessarily mean they were safe. They could, in theory, stay in the passage nearly indefinitely, at least until, if they were so lucky, the Imperials gave up. With their thin nightclothes, it was cold, but it was something they could deal with. At the same time, the Imperials giving up, Darth Vader giving up, was unlikely, and after a while of not finding them, the Imperials would know something was off. 

That happened a lot sooner than they’d hoped. No sooner had they decided to gently crack the door open and see if they could hear anything, they heard the sound of a door opening from farther back in the passage and a clear, too clear too loud for comfort, voice shout out: 

“Captain, I’ve found a hidden passage!” 

The two of them bolted, scrambling out of the bookshelf door and into the library. They hurried to the door, ready to make for the sitting room window, when- 

Luke yelped and Leia screeched like an angry cat when two pairs of strong, armored, arms snatched them up mid step in the hall. 

“Lord Vader, we’ve found them!” 

The storm troopers carried them both, kicking and, in Leia’s case, screeching, down to the front hall to join their parents. Bail and Breha looked terrified, and Breha reached for them before one of the storm troopers next to her stopped her in her tracks. 

Leia quieted and both she and Luke stilled completely when the storm troopers carrying them brought them before Vader. His presence alone was oppressive, he seemed to loom over them even when he crouched down to look at their faces, his mechanical suit hissing at the motion. Both twins could feel their hearts pounding, and Luke thought that surely Vader could hear it. 

Vader reached out, and Leia quickly moved her head to the side but Luke was too scared and was frozen stiff as Vader’s hand gently (gently?) rested on his face, almost cupping his cheek. For a minute that felt like an eternity no one moved. It seemed like no one even breathed. Vader stared at Luke and Leia, who stared back at him, though they could only see their own faces reflected in the eyes of his mask. Bail and Breha watched, terrified for their adopted children as they clutched each other’s hand. But no one moved. No one spoke. 

And then the moment was broken. Vader stood, mechanical suit hissing, and turned to the troopers. 

“Bring them to the shuttle.” 

Everyone burst into movement and noise. 

“Let. Us. Go!” Leia yelled through gritted teeth as she and Luke began to struggle against the hold of the storm troopers once more. Breha and Bail tried to rush forward but the troopers next to them held them back firmly. Luke and Leia could hear yelling as they were carried out of the palace. 

“They’re  _ children,  _ Vader! Don’t hurt them!” 

“You think I would hurt  _ them _ ?” 

The twins didn’t have time to ponder that as the troopers marched further away from the palace. 

When they saw the shuttle, ramp open like a giant maw ready to swallow them, Luke began to panic and Leia fought harder. Leia managed to get her house shoe off her foot and smacked it into the troopers helmet, hitting until she could hear a sensor sending an error signal. At the same time that the trooper loosened their hold on her, Luke went completely limp, and his sudden deadweight pulled him out of the troopers arms. 

“Leia!” He grabbed onto his sister, trying to pull her out of the other troopers arms. At the same time, a different trooper tried to grab him, and Luke tried to fight back while keeping a hold on Leia. 

Luke and Leia’s yelling was every bit as loud as the storm troopers shouting commands to each other, but everyone stopped still at the sound of a blaster firing. Even the storm troopers froze for a moment: one had Luke in their arms while Luke still hung onto Leia’s legs and Leia paused mid swing of her shoe on her captor’s helmet.

The captain who had come with the troopers and Vader had caught up to the group, and had his blaster pointed into the air. 

“Children.” The captain’s voice was even and calm. “I don’t wish to stun you but I will if you don’t come quietly.” 

“Why are you taking us?!” Leia shouted. 

“That information is above my pay grade,” the captain replied pleasantly. 

“What are you doing to our parents?!” Luke yelled. 

“Your parents are fine. They are unharmed and will remain so as long as both of you  _ behave. _ ” 

There wasn’t anything they could say to that. Angry, but silent, the children could do nothing else but let the captain and storm troopers escort them into the shuttle. 

The troopers strapped them into seats and attached crash webbing without comment. Luke shivered and stared at his feet, clutching Leia’s hand in his, when Vader arrived, walking up the ramp into the shuttle. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything, didn’t even stop in front of them, just kept moving. 

Luke looked up at Leia, who was glaring hard at Vader, and squeezed her hand. Their parents would be okay if they behaved. The two of them would figure out what was happening, probably also only if they behaved. And even if that wasn’t the case, Darth Vader was the last person whose attention they wanted. 

The shuttle ride up to the ship was far too long but also impossibly short. Too long to sit in silence, Leia’s anger and Luke’s anxiety growing, but far too short for the magnitude of what it was. The shuttle was taking them to the ship that would take them away from Alderaan, from their parents. 

From safety. 

The troopers untangled them from the crash webbing and unbuckled their straps with silent efficiency. In no time at all, they were made to walk between a pair of storm troopers, behind Vader and the captain, off the shuttle and into the hangar bay of whatever ship they’d been brought to.

The hangar bay alone was at least the size of the palace in Alderaan, and it was full of people. Stormtroopers, regular personnel, and officers. All in perfect lines, all completely still. Despite the size of the hangar bay and the mass amount of people inside it, it was quiet enough to hear the hum of machinery and the footsteps of the company who had taken them. The rows and rows of personnel were either watching them as they passed or staring unblinkingly forward. The twins felt impossibly small and almost pitiful, walking past in only their nightclothes with no shoes. Luke clutched Leia’s hand, and she squeezed right back. The air on the ship was so much colder than the palace, and the two of them couldn’t help but shiver even though they tried to hide it. 

They were royals of Alderaan and they wanted to make sure everyone knew it. But like this they just felt like children. 

The storm troopers and Vader walked them through the corridors of the star destroyer, both efficient and somehow also winding. It was difficult to remember the different directions they’d turned, it was hard to even get a good idea of the layout of the ship like this, and they needed to be able to figure it out if they stood a chance at escaping. 

Just as Luke had that thought, Vader turned his head towards him and even though Luke couldn’t see his eyes he just knew he was looking at him. 

“It would be wise, young one, to put any thoughts of escaping out of your mind.” 

The storm trooper at Luke’s side tightened their grip on his shoulder and Luke had to fight the impulse to try and squirm away. He wanted to ask how Vader had even known Luke had been thinking of escape routes, but Vader was beyond intimidating. He towered over the twins and even his presence alone was overpowering and Luke felt almost compelled to keep his mouth shut. 

Vader and the storm troopers brought them to chambers that must have been officer’s quarters. The set of rooms was utterly unremarkable, save for several guards stationed outside, with a small sitting room, and open doors showing a bedroom and fresher. Not uncomfortable, but everything was the typical durasteel gray, with white and dark green linens a similar color to, if not the same color as, the officer’s uniforms. As soon as the twins were inside, the storm troopers turned and left. Unfortunately, though, Darth Vader remained even after the door closed. 

Luke was wary, looking up at Vader. Leia was angry. 

“Why have you taken us?” she snapped, hands on her hips. 

Vader took a seat on one of the couches in the sitting room like he belonged there and meant to be there a while. 

“Did the Organa’s ever tell you of your true origins?”

“Is it a crime to name adopted children as your heirs?” Leia fired back. 

“So they’ve told you you’re adopted,” Vader nodded. “Have they told you who your birth parents are?” 

“Our birth parents were killed in the Clone Wars,” Luke spoke up.

“But that doesn’t answer why you’ve taken us!” Leia snapped. 

“Your mother was killed at the end of the Clone Wars,” Vader agreed. “But your father…”

Both twins froze, staring at Vader. Their hearts were in their throats. They didn’t really know what Vader was going to say but at the same time they both had a sudden thought, a sudden surge of  _ knowing _ that turned their stomachs. 

But there was nothing they could do as Vader spoke again. 

  
“ _ I  _ am your father.”


	2. Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I apologize for adding this note after I posted the chapter but I realized I forgot to add a warning on the actual chapter and I felt like I needed to. This chapter has descriptions of canon-typical non-graphic torture, and several descriptions of panic attacks.

Falling… Luke closed his eyes and focused on the sensation of falling. If all he thought about was the air rushing over his face, through his hair, the tug of gravity, then he didn’t have to think about anything else. Like the pain from his missing hand. The news he’d just gotten. Or the fact that, in a detached way, he could tell he was starting to have a panic attack. None of that mattered right now. None of that was immediately necessary. He was falling. 

Until he wasn’t. 

Luke’s eyes shot open as he felt the Force rush around him like water, and abruptly he stopped in mid-air. It was Vader, he could feel without even needing to look, and the building panic slammed into him. He struggled against the Force holding him still and… lifting him up. He was moving upward almost gently and he  _ screamed. _

This couldn’t be happening. 

“Let me go!” he shrieked at Vader, thrashing and trying to break the Sith lord’s hold on him but Vader was far more powerful than Luke and Luke was  _ terrified.  _

_ Sleep, son.  _ The command through the Force knocked him out like a light. 

… 

For the next while (minutes? Hours?  _ Days? _ ) all Luke knew was confusion. Confusion and pain. He felt like he was floating through deep space, his brain swirling and twisting and tossing around in a never-ending whirlpool. Sometimes pain would fly through his veins like lightning shooting through the sky, crackling on his bones and all he could do was scream. He thought he begged for it to stop but he wasn’t sure his mouth was even moving. He could only wait, wait until it seemed like it would never end, before he was finally granted a reprieve. Until it began again.

And everything was bright. So bright it made his eyes tender even though he wasn’t sure if they were open or not. There was no end to it, even when the pain stopped, there was no end to the light that felt like it was blistering his skin. No rest, no retreat. The light kept him all too aware of the pain, of his head spinning, of the fact that he had no clue what was happening because even when he opened his eyes, or thought he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything. 

He tried to reach out with the Force at one point, but even his Force senses were so muddled that the most he could feel was his own heart beat, his own sense of self. Like being underwater in the swamp of Degobah. No matter where he turned, he could feel nothing but his own life force, and the pain that flooded through it. 

Finally, the thought came unbidden into his mind: 

_ Father… Father, make it stop, please.  _

_ Luke…  _ his father’s voice felt like cool water on his skin. He could feel his father’s presence and he reached out for it blindly like a starving baby smelling milk. 

He held onto his father, and he wasn’t sure if his father was drawing him deeper into his mind or actually making what was happening to Luke in the waking world stop, but either way it was a blessing. First it grew dark, then cool… like being underwater but without the terror that that held for Luke. Everything was calm, everything was quiet. He could feel the vague sensation of floating, there was no current to pull him along. He could feel the thrum of his own heartbeat and, faintly, a second one that could only be Vader. Peaceful. Gentle. For once, everything was gentle.

_ Thank you… Father. _

_ You are strong with the Force, my son.  _ Like this his Father’s voice was less metallic, smoother, not so much of a baritone. Luke wondered if it was what he sounded like without the mask.  _ You have the ability to save yourself from this. _

_ How? I’m barely trained.  _

_ You already know. Draw on the Dark Side and  _ **_make_ ** _ it stop.  _

_ Father, I can’t, I  _ **_won’t_ ** _ turn.  _

_ You must, Luke. It is the only way to survive. _

Just then, Luke could feel the calm place slipping away, like mist through his fingers. He panicked as he felt the world get brighter, the sweet coolness sucked away by the never-ending harsh light. 

_ Father, no! Father,  _ **_please!_ **

_ You are capable, Luke. You must do this.  _

Luke screamed in frustration when the calm place in his mind drained away completely. The pain returned doubled, and Luke felt tears fall from the corners of his eyes. It felt like they had run every part of him through with a lightsaber and for a moment all Luke could feel was anger that his  _ Father  _ had sent him back to this. 

The next moment, the anger had enough of a foothold on him that he didn’t think but just used it to push. Push the pain out, away, he wanted it to  _ stop.  _ Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he shouldn’t be doing this, that this was exactly what Master Yoda and Ben had warned against, but they  _ weren’t here _ and there was no other way. He wanted the pain to  _ end. _

And it did. Vaguely Luke was aware of something, like a needle, leaving his body. But the most important thing was that the pain stopped. It stopped, not quite immediately but it slowed rapidly and Luke shuddered involuntarily. Over and over, nothing overly violent but his body was just shaking as Luke came down from the sensation of constant pain. His eyes still burned and he pushed past the fog, searching for the source of the light and squeezing with the Force until he heard something shatter and the light went out just before he felt bits of broken transparisteel, not much, rain down on him. Some of the pieces bit into his skin but the pain from that barely even registered as a sensation compared to what he’d gone through. 

It was dark. It was quiet. He wasn’t hurting anymore. For a moment that was all that mattered and Luke allowed himself to just stay still and process the lack of sensation. The absence of sharp pain. Let the cool air and darkness wash over his skin like a balm. But he couldn’t stay here. Someone, Vader, an officer, a storm trooper, someone was going to come check on him at some point, and they’d put him right back where he started. 

He opened his eyes, and the room he was in was completely dark save for lights coming off the control panels. He was strapped to a table but the straps seemed to be more for keeping him in place than really restraining him; they were easy to get off. The only advantage he had right now was that no one had expected him to be able to get up and move, and he was determined to use it. His limbs shook from weakness as he rolled off of the table, nearly crashing onto the floor, and he fought to get them under control. If he couldn’t he was  _ dead,  _ or he would wish he was soon enough. 

His limbs wouldn’t stop trembling but eventually he forced himself to move. The panel for the door shone like a beacon to his tired eyes in the dark of the interrogation room, and Luke reached out to activate it… before recoiling in pain as the barely healed stump where his right hand should have been flared. He forced down a whimper but couldn’t control his rising panic. The pain had been so all-consuming that he’d pushed the horror from losing his right hand to the back of his mind but now it exploded inside him, rocketing into the forefront of his thoughts until his breath came too fast and all he could feel was pure unadulterated terror… his  _ Father  _ had done this to him. Darth Vader was his Father. The monster of the Galaxy. 

Forcing himself into action, he slammed his left hand into the door lock and it opened. The hall was painfully bright and Luke felt tears welling up as his eyes strained but he took off anyway. He had to get out of here… he had to. He stumbled down the hall, trying to find a maintenance passage, a weak air vent,  _ anything _ , but it was hard to even look when the panic slammed into him like a runaway bantha. His heart was racing and with each pulse every sense in his body screamed at him that he was in danger, he had to  _ get out,  _ he was  _ going to die _ . It was clouding his senses which only made it worse. 

Luke felt a hand on his shoulder and didn’t even think before he Force-pushed them away and took off running. He heard a shout behind him but he was able to stay ahead. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to, though. The people here knew this ship (he was assuming it was a ship but he didn’t really know, did he?) like the backs of their hands, and Luke did not. 

He whipped around corners and pushed storm troopers and officers aside with the Force. He knew he was only drawing more personnel towards him, Vader definitely knew he was conscious by now, but it was impossible to not draw attention. 

Finally, he got a break. Just ahead of him a technician came out of a maintenance shaft door. She stared at him bewildered for two seconds before Luke moved her out of the way and she yelped in surprise. In that instant he slipped through to the maintenance shaft and slammed the door behind him, using the Force to obliterate the locking mechanism. 

Hiding in here wasn’t a fail safe plan; there were many entrances to the maintenance corridors and Luke knew there’d be people right behind him in not too long, but at least it was easier. The maintenance corridors were dark, not pitch black but low lit, and it was much easier on his strained eyes. The air was colder, insulation wasn’t as much of a priority here, and Luke could hear the easy, familiar, hum of machinery. Somewhere in his general area, a pipe dripped and the steady sound gave him something to calm his heart to. The panic attack had passed, and now he was exhausted. But he had to keep going. He was still out in the open.

Luke moved through the corridors, used the Force to help him climb ladders and keep his steps quiet when he had to cross durasteel catwalks. The main problem was the ladders, but if he really concentrated he could use the Force almost like a phantom limb. He didn’t dare do more than that, he was still so tired, and he had the feeling that if he drew on the Force too strongly, Vader would know where he was. 

Vader would find him eventually, but Luke didn’t want to make the job any easier. 

The noise in the corridors was so ambient that even if Luke hadn’t had the aid of the Force, he would have known immediately when someone else entered them. The low hum of the machinery and the quiet beeps of the mouse droids was brutally interrupted with the sound of the doors flying open (and that was doors plural, they were coming from more than one direction) and synchronized footsteps. 

Luke found a small niche in the wall, likely a spot for droids to charge out of the way, and slid inside it. He didn’t know where they’d come in from, how many levels above or below him. They weren’t on the same level as he was, at least not yet, but the way the whole maintenance area echoed, distorting the footsteps and voices, it was hard to pinpoint exact locations without drawing on the Force. 

_ Son _

His Father’s voice was so sudden in his head that Luke had to muffle a gasp that left him before he could stop it. Kriff, they’d find him in a minute if he kept this up. If he made too much noise he’d bring both Vader and whoever else was looking for him right to him. He had to either focus on shielding or his increasing heart rate, his shielding was still too weak to try both.

He chose shielding, in the hope that focusing on it would make him calm down. He’d been able to sense Vader before all this, before Bespin, and he could feel that that connection had only gotten stronger. And if he could feel it then Vader could probably pinpoint his location with it. 

He was bad at shielding, Master Yoda had chided him whenever they worked on it, but it was now or never. He focused on making his mind as much of a fortress as he could, letting the thought that he wasn’t there fill his brain. He wasn’t there, no one could find him. He wasn’t there, no one could find him… 

Luke’s heart sank into his stomach as he heard the loud, steady, sound of an all-too familiar respirator. Bringing himself back to the present, he realized that he was shaking, tears running down his face, his breath too quick, too  _ loud _ . It hadn’t worked, it hadn’t worked, it hadn’t- 

Luke had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming when he felt Darth Vader’s hand gently (gently?) touching his hair. 

_ Son. Come with me. _

There was nothing else Luke could do.


	3. Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short, and a product of me watching Midsommar about five times in the last week and listening to the maypole song on repeat for several hours. I didn't mean for this to be the next chapter but I couldn't get any other writing done until I worked on it. This is meant to be more of a sensory thing, if that makes sense, although I'm not sure how well it'll come across since I wrote and edited it late at night over only two days. Minor character death.

Everything was moving. Somewhere under the noise of his own labored breathing Luke could hear music. It wasn’t dissimilar to what Luke had grown up with on Tatooine, but it was constant, almost a dirge. Everything pulsed with the music, the way the light played off the flowers in everyone’s hair, off the sweat pouring from everyone’s skin, even his breathing seemed to be in time with it. Vaguely he could hear someone laugh and it seemed as though the sound itself had light to it, light he could follow, as it mixed in with the same from the music. The music that wound its way into the air around them, seeping into everyone’s skin. His feet throbbed with pain, throbbed in time with the music, until he felt as though he could feel each blade of grass even through his shoes. But still he kept dancing.

Dancing… he didn’t know why he was dancing. The two beings beside him gripped his hands to pull him into it, but through the haze of light Luke could make out their faces and they looked just as tired as he was, slack-jawed and eyes glazed over. But they didn’t stop, or maybe they couldn’t. Luke didn’t feel like his feet would stop even if he tried to collapse. He didn’t know this dance but his body moved in time, in sync, with the other dancers as if he’d been born knowing it. They danced a circle around a pole, sometimes stopping to change directions as if they’d been ordered even though there was nothing else but the music. Drop hands, dance a circle around themselves, link again, and keep going. He did it without thinking, his body moving independently of his mind. 

Dancing… why were they dancing? Luke didn’t even remember beginning the dance. He thought he remembered feeling a sense of purpose as he landed his x-wing in a field of tall grass, but anything beyond that was a blur. He didn’t know why he’d come here, or where “here” even was. He tried to reach out with the Force, but even using the Force felt impossible, like he was reaching for it in his sleep. But this couldn’t be a dream, the pain thrummed up through his feet into the rest of him too strongly for this to be a dream. 

One of the flowers that had been braided into his hair slipped and came to rest over his left eye. He focused on it as his body still moved through the dance. The sun was so bright it shone through the flower petals and he could see what looked like veins, a darker pink against the almost translucent light pink of the petal. He could almost see the Force flowing through the flower, dim since it was dying, it had been cut from the rest of the plant, but still flowing through it. The air was hot, not hotter than it had been under Tatooine’s suns but it was far more humid than Tatooine could ever be and it made the air, the heat itself, sticky. It sapped the energy from him, but he kept moving. 

Pain spiked as Luke’s legs automatically jumped over something… someone. There was a body in the path of the dancers now, a twi’lek with flowers wrapped around her lekku, and Luke knew without thinking about it that she was dead. Luke tripped over his own feet as everyone dropped hands to circle again, but his body righted himself before he could even think about trying to drop out of the circle. The pole they danced around pulsed with color and light, it was covered in flowers that waved as though there was a breeze. The next pass around, the twi’lek’s body was gone. 

The sun in the sky did not move, the heat, the humidity, did not lessen and Luke had no knowledge of the true passage of time. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he openly panted to take in air, his chest heaving. One of the dancers next to him had fallen dead, he had felt their hand go slack just before they became deadweight and fell into the grass, but Luke was powerless to do anything other than take the hand of the dancer on the other side of the now empty space. He didn’t know how long ago that was. 

Luke couldn’t see clearly, his eyes glassy and unfocused. The dancer’s hearts beat as one, joined by their hands, his pain was their pain and theirs was his. Someone’s feet were bleeding but he didn’t know if it was his or not. He’d never been so tired, never hurt so much, but it didn’t matter. They kept dancing. The sky was bright with color, the Force was flowing out of the dancers to the center of the circle, the pole of flowers. All different colors, flowing from them almost as ribbons to the pole, all different ribbons of light. The grass, the trees on the edge of the clearing, the flowers… he could see them breathing, see them pulsing with life through the Force. 

That was significant somehow, perhaps what he’d come here to figure out, but the thought passed through his head just as quickly as the air through his lungs. Everything hurt, not just the steps of the dance but the beating of his heart, the blood flowing through his body. Every pulse was pain as the sun scorched his skin, and he could feel himself getting weaker. The Force was draining from him into the planet, and the planet wasn’t giving back. A black hole to counter the light within him. 

He could hear screaming. It was fuzzy, he could barely hear anything besides the music and his own breath, but he knew it was screaming. What was screaming? He could only hear his own breath, but his heartbeat was intertwined with the beat of the drums and he, along with the other dancers, kept going. He tripped again, over nothing this time, his own feet maybe, but managed to right himself before he could fall to his knees. 

There was something around his waist. Arms, strong arms, durasteel ridgid. Whose arms? Someone was lifting him from the circle, lifting him up, but his muscles still twitched in time with the dance steps, his feet moving minutely. His hands were slick as they slid out of the grip of the beings next to him. Something blocked out the sun, and he didn’t understand. He heard noise, recognized it as language, but couldn’t understand it. Something like alarm pulsed through him, but it wasn’t his. Alarm… alarm… what was wrong? 

He could feel the other dancers’ lights going out. Not slowly, like before, as they succumbed to exhaustion and heat, but quickly. What little was left floated into the greater Force before the planet could consume the rest. 

“Luke! Luke, stay with me.” He could recognize the words, his brain sluggish but connecting them as a language. He recognized the voice, too. Deep, baritone, metallic. Father. 

His Father’s presence in the Force was cold, cold like Luke had not felt in a very long time. He protected Luke as well as he was able, drawing Darkness around him so the planet would leave him alone, would have a harder time finding him. It was soothing, like the first time he’d felt rain, and Luke relaxed in his Father’s arms. 

“No, Luke, you have to hold on.”

Luke didn’t realize until the sun no longer scorched him, until climate control began to suck the heat and sticky humidity out of the air, that they’d made it into a shuttle. They’d get away soon. Away from the planet. Luke knew he had to stay conscious, stay awake, but he was tired, so tired. Pain still thrummed through his body with every heartbeat. 

And his heart still beat in time with music that was no longer playing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much what was going on is the planet Luke was on is a sort of black hole in the Force (sort of) and consumes the essence of light-affiliated Force users/sensitives. The beings that live on the planet are primarily Dark-side users and hypnotize the beings they get a hold of from off-planet into a dance ritual that allows the planet to consume their energy. I used the maypole music and dance from Midsommar for inspiration cause it's kind of been my obsession for the past week or so. That song isn't actually on the soundtrack (why??) and so the recording I listened to had the audio from the movie including Dani's breathing, which more or less inspired this.   
> Also, no, Luke isn't going to die, Vader got to him in time.


	4. In which there's an uprising on Tatooine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this a month or so ago, after listening to waaaay too much Hamilton. And then I really started thinking about what feelings Luke might have actually had if he had learned about Anakin Skywalker earlier than he did in canon, especially combined with the slave culture of Tatooine.
> 
> I know a lot of people read fanfic to get away from reality for a little bit, heck I do the same, but this isn't quite that. If one person is suffering, if a whole group of people are suffering, under an unjust system then we as humans need to do what we can to stop it, to make it right. Black lives matter.

It all started with a security holo.

“Unfortunately most of the security holocams on Tatooine are… outdated…” Captain Piett informed Lord Vader as they both walked towards the projector. It was a polite way of saying that the holocams on Tatooine, like many things on Tatooine, were complete rubbish. On nearly any other planet they would be deemed unacceptable but this was Tatooine. “...and our facial recognition could not pick anything up. However, based on what we  _ can  _ see, and the sources of the reports we’ve received, I believe it to be a decent lead.” 

“The sources?” Vader inquired as the man began to pull up past holo’s. 

“Imperial-aligned merchants mostly, several who have a decent record of wartime service. We’ve also intercepted a few transmissions from the Hutts, grumbling about rebel activity amongst themselves. They’ve not contacted us officially, however-” 

“They wouldn’t,” Vader nodded. 

The first holo was from several standard weeks ago. The quality was horrendous, with the beings in the holo looking more like vague bipedal forms than anything recognizable. But Vader waited and, as Piett paused the holo and adjusted controls to zoom in and sharpen as best as the holo would allow, he could see what the man was talking about. 

Rebel x-wings, several of them. Even as enhanced as the imaging could get, the faces of the pilots, the ground troops, were not discernible. But the color contrast on the x-wings themselves was enough that Vader could make out the hint of the rebel insignia. 

Piett jumped from holo to holo with a swiftness that told Vader the man had watched these enough times to see them in his sleep, and brought him up to date on what they knew. There was no visible rebel activity within the past seventy-two standard hours, but they most certainly had been on Tatooine. They’d heard reports of unrelated tensions prior, and then a sudden jump in rebel traffic and activity, and it had tapered off much more slowly than it had begun. Too vague to conclude much, but Piett figured the rebels had somehow been involved in the already existing ground conflict, but hadn’t set up a base- likely on account of the Hutts. 

“It’s soon enough after their disappearance from the system that I believe we could still gain valuable information. I’ve dispatched a small squadron earlier this cycle,” Piett told Vader as he continued to maneuver his way through various holos. Vader knew there was something else to it, Piett was capable and independent, and he generally made investigations without informing him unless he found something that absolutely needed to be brought to Vader’s attention.

In the last holo, he saw it even before Piett had paused and enhanced it. Someone was using a lightsaber. 

“Let it play,” Vader ordered, keeping his eyes on the figure. 

Piett did so, occasionally jumping to different holocams when the figure disappeared from view. From what Vader could see he could tell whoever this was had received some training, but not much. There would be hints of a form here and there, but anything formal would disappear just as quickly as it appeared in favor of improvisation. Still, Vader could tell even through a low-quality holo that the being  _ had  _ received training at some point and that alone was enough to spark his interest. A Jedi on the planet? Not a full-fledged knight, at least, but perhaps a former Padawaan had found a Force sensitive and taught them what they knew. The lightsaber though… he needed to investigate. 

“Prepare a shuttle.” 

“Yes, Lord Vader, I’ll inform you when it’s ready to disembark.” 

……….. 

There was a general level of unease in Mos Espa. A star destroyer had been spotted over Mos Eisley and the Empire having any kind of presence on Tatooine was rare. Rare, not unheard of, but usually neutral to negative. On one hand it was likely nothing, something more for the smugglers or Jabba’s ilk to worry about. Even if news had reached the Empire of the Rebel Alliance presence not long ago, the rebels were long gone and any Imperial investigator would be able to see that within a few hours at most. 

On the other hand, there was the slight possibility that Jabba had requested aid. Unlikely, the Hutts dealt with themselves and the Empire ignored them, but it wasn’t impossible. But there was no way of knowing until it was too late to do anything about it. The unease over the Empire crashed into the wave of tension that had already been present since the revolution had begun, and the two almost cancelled each other out. It was quiet. It wasn’t calm, Mos Espa never was, but it was quiet. 

Luke did his best to use it. Everyone had been more or less on lockdown since the Rebel Alliance had helped him and the rest of the revolt take out a good chunk of Jabba’s upper court as well as the controls for the security chips. The chips were gone, Luke still smiled when he thought about it. The revolution’s main hindrance had been the chips embedded in the slaves’ bodies designed to explode if they tried to escape (or overthrow Jabba.) Not every slave on Tatooine had one, but everyone who had passed through Jabba’s palace at one time or another had, and that was a good portion of the population. Now with the chips gone, the revolt could move much quicker, and that included getting people off-planet. 

With the Empire in the atmosphere, most of the traders were eager to get out of the system entirely, both Jabba’s contractors and freelancers alike. Luke avoided anyone who he or someone else in the network knew to be deep in Jabba’s pocket, but there were plenty who, even though they were contracted, hated the Hutt just as much as the revolt did. They were who Luke went to, the familiar faces that Luke could trust enough to put people on their ship. With the chips gone, some former slaves wanted to stay and fight; they had carved out as much of a life for themselves as they could on Tatooine and it was their right to protect it. But there were just as many who wanted to get away while Jabba and his goons were still floundering. 

Han Solo and Chewbacca were two of the traders he was working with… or trying to. Huddled in the corner of a hole-in-the-wall cantina, as inconspicuous as two men and a wookie could be. 

“Look, kid, I don’t like this any more than you do, but I’m already on Jabba’s bad side.”

“Most of the damn planet is on Jabba’s bad side. I’m on Jabba’s bad side, the merchants are on Jabba’s bad side, hell, the farmers are on Jabba’s bad side since we stopped his goons from collecting the water tax. He’s got half his palace crumbling around him, he doesn’t have the manpower to do anything about it.”

“Yeah, and when he gets his footing back? I can do without a bounty on my head, thank you.” 

Han Solo had lost enough cargo in the last run to be worth putting out a bounty? Damn, that was news to Luke. 

“Knowing you, you’ll be back here, with profit, before he even realizes you’re gone!” Luke adjusted his argument.

“With the Empire hovering over us? I don’t think so.”

“Bantha shit, what happened to the fastest ship in the galaxy?” 

Han grunted like he didn’t quite have an answer for that one, and Luke saw his chance. He didn’t bother attempting to put that little bit of  _ extra persuasion _ into his voice that he had learned years ago from Ben, but he did turn on the charm. Han was a sucker for a cute face, and he had a softer heart than he wanted to admit. 

“Han, I’m only asking that you drop them off on the first port you get to that doesn’t have a Hutt on it. Nothing more than that.” Luke watched Han try to stay neutral for a second before he dropped the next bit. “Besides, they’ve got kids.”

“Kriffing damnit, Luke.”

Chewbacca gave a soft growl, and from the little bit that Luke understood he could tell the wookie was telling Han to just agree already so they could get going. They both knew he was going to.

Luke kept staring at Han, doing the wide-eyed trusting farm boy look that worked on almost everyone save for his aunt and uncle. He could almost hear Han’s thought process, full of cursing, and had to keep himself from smiling. Han was a good man, for all that he claimed he was a scoundrel. 

“Fine,” Han finally groaned after a moment, and Luke let his smile show. “But you owe me!” 

“Of course I do,” Luke replied, still smiling. 

“We’re leaving in two standard hours.” 

“I’ll have them on the Falcon by then.”

And he did. With a final goodbye and a “may the Force be with you” he was able to see the whole family onto the Falcon and off the planet safely. Warmth flooded through Luke as he took his uncle’s speeder back towards the Lars homestead. A woman with her own mother and two young children, by now in hyperspace safe from Jabba. Two kids who didn’t have to grow up under Jabba’s thumb, a mother and grandmother who could watch them grow safely, and they were free and together. 

It was too late for his father and grandmother Shmi, but not for someone else. That was what mattered.

Uncle Owen was waiting for him once he got back, and Luke could see the relief on his face for all that the man tried not to show it. Uncle Owen had been terrified when Luke’s planning with his friends had morphed into a full-on uprising, he’d reacted much the same as he had when Luke had come home one afternoon at ten years old, full of new knowledge about his father and wanting to know why he hadn’t been told, or as he had when Luke came home with Ben in tow, talking about the Force and Jedi. Now at nineteen, Luke knew that Uncle Owen reacted like that because he loved Luke, he was afraid for him. He’d grown up in a system that made people want to keep their heads down, or those in power would shove them into the sand and leave them to bleed. But he knew, just like Luke did, that once Luke found out who his father was, born a slave and set free only to be separated from his mother, there was no going back. 

“I checked the third vaporator on my way back,” Luke said as Uncle Owen met him where he parked the speeder. “It’s running well enough but the climate controls still don’t quite respond like they should. I think we need to get a droid over to it to figure it out.” 

Uncle Owen nodded. “I’ll talk to Darklighter and get it figured out. How did… how did it go?” 

Luke smiled, and he felt Uncle Owen relax. “One more family safe and sound and off this rock.”

…….

Investigating in Mos Eisley went about as well as Vader could have expected. Some of the inhabitants were nervous about their own records and claimed not to know anything, others vehemently told him again and again that they didn’t know anything, but through the Force Vader could almost hear them yelling

_ “We didn’t ask for the Rebel Alliance to come here, leave those kids alone!”  _

The ones he pressed for information told him that the Rebel Alliance had come and gone, they knew no names, could recognize no faces, and absolutely did not remember who had interacted with the rebels while they were on planet. When he mentioned a jedi they were visibly confused, and at least that he could feel ring true through the Force. They knew of no jedi on Tatooine. 

To all appearances it appeared that any jedi on the planet might have been with the Rebel Alliance but the Force told Vader differently. There was someone here, he knew it, though he couldn’t pinpoint where. They were bright, but unfocused, untrained. Untrained even though they wielded a lightsaber, which was somewhat confusing in and of itself. 

He got a broader picture of what had been happening on the planet when a few troopers alerted him to a new source: some of Jabba’s enforcers. They were eager to tell him of a Rebel marked cruiser with something broken, none of them could agree on what it had been, landing near Anchorhead. One of them mentioned that one of the “uprising brats” helped the rebels fix the ship, and not too long after the planet had been “crawling with rebels.” 

“Uprising brats?” 

They almost tripped over themselves to tell him of their latest set of woes. Teenagers, though they didn’t know their names, and the Force told him it was genuine, starting a “genuine movement” to free Tatooine’s slaves. Farmers rioting with help from the uprising and refusing to pay Jabba’s water tax, a mysterious cache of weapons, someone taking out the system for the security chips, and half of Jabba’s court had been killed. They seemed to believe that the Empire would side with Jabba, and gleefully told Vader of how the Rebel Alliance had assisted the uprising. 

It was conceivable that the rebels would feel indebted to someone who had helped them, depending on what was broken on a cruiser it could have been a sizeable favor, and would certainly call for them to help a slave uprising however they were able. And while Tatooine natives could, with enough organization, put a stop to Jabba collecting a water tax, nullifying the security chips would have taken a lot more manpower than tired farmers and angry teenagers could have had. 

And now the Force was telling Vader to wait. Wait and feel everything out.

With that, Vader began to meditate. Meditate and cast out his senses, searching the planet for answers. The Force told him that the half-trained Force sensitive with the lightsaber was somehow involved with the uprising, and Vader knew he could only get answers on that by playing the waiting game. So he meditated, and felt. 

Tatooine, for all that it was a dead planet, still buzzed with life in the Force. Beneath the sands it was as if the planet was holding a metaphorical breath and the inhabitants on the surface were waiting for the exhale. Anger, resentment, desperation, determination, a damning sliver of hope… they flowed through the inhabitants of the planet like the dry air. Gluttony and greed bearing down on the tired but hopeful… the planet had not changed. That was the spirit of Tatooine, bound as well as it could be to the hunk of rock floating through the galaxy.

He listened to what echoed through the Force from the inhabitants of the planet. The settlements were bright centers of emotion where it all braided and tangled together, but even out in the wastes there was the skeleton of a Krayt dragon that still echoed the fierce rage and hunger it had been filled with in life. Vader listened and waited. 

Most of the planet eased down with the suns as the chill of night crept in. With it quieter Vader could focus, pinpoint. Children gone to bed hungry, their mother’s worry a festering spot in the Force. Anger taking root as someone healed from a beating. Exhaustion, but hope. Someone was hiding, they’d been hiding all day and now that those damnable chips were nullified they were going, going to find home, to find mother, and-

_ Now, now, we have to do it now. They’re counting on us.  _

_ This is for my father. _

Vader snapped back into awareness. That was it. That was who he was looking for. 

He followed where the Force told him to go and watched from an alley. He could feel the Force signature of whoever he was looking for, accompanied by several others, in one of the houses in Mos Eisley. They were quiet, if Vader didn’t have a connection with the Force he wouldn’t have known they were there at all. But they weren’t the only ones. A few others, loyal to Jabba judging from the malicious intent rolling off of them, hid just out of sight in the shadows of the street. 

The group had just left the house, Vader could see one of them signing to the others to split off, when everyone waiting in the street lit glow rods. By the light of the glow rods, Vader could see that the ones who had been in the house, presumably those involved with the uprising, were teenagers. Older teenagers, most of them, three humans, a falleen, and a twi’lek. They looked around at Jabba’s enforcers, their fear obvious, before the human boy furrowed his brow. Through the Force, Vader could feel his fear overcome by determination. 

“Run,” the boy said softly, and then lit a lightsaber. 

The boy was quick to block the blaster fire from the enforcers, and he and the twi’lek girl jumped from the house steps to the half circle of the enforcers in the street. One of the enforcers started to go after the three who ran, but the twi’lek fired her blaster at their throat and was accurate enough that it glanced off, their neck spraying blood in its wake. 

The enforcers had blasters and large batons, and they were larger than the two teenagers. But both the teenagers were filled with determination and fury. The girl was careful with her blaster, making sure that when she fired her aim was true, and she primarily kept the enforcers from running off after the other three or overwhelming her and the boy. The boy was ruthless, a jedi had obviously taught him how to use the weapon in his hand, but both the dark and light side of the Force swirled around him. The enforcers got in hits with their batons, but Vader could feel the boy take that physical pain and use it to push himself further. 

Three of the enforcers fell to the boy’s lightsaber, and two to the girl’s blaster, but there were two more left and they were rabid. One of them nearly overwhelmed the girl before she landed her shot, but in the moment before she fired she nearly lost her balance in her haste to back away, and let out a yelp. Her cry made the boy turn, which gave the enforcer the second they needed to swing the baton hard into the boy’s head. 

“Luke!” the girl cried out as the boy went down hard. 

The last remaining enforcer pulled their blaster, about to fire at the boy at point blank range, when Vader decided enough was enough. He reached out with the Force and the enforcer dropped their blaster in favor of clawing at their neck as Vader began to cut off their air. The girl’s surprise morphed into horror as Vader stepped out from his hiding spot into the light of the dropped glow rods. To her credit she seemed to realize there was no use in trying to shoot. 

He let the enforcer’s terror, the realization that they were going to die, set in and build before he finally snapped their neck. 

For one moment, two, all three of them were silent. The girl stared horror struck at Vader, the boy tried to get up but was clearly still too dazed to have much motor control, and Vader simply watched them both. The boy broke the silence. 

“Ashna… run.” 

“Luke-” 

“I can barely move, Ashna. Stick with the plan.” 

Reluctantly, so reluctantly, she did. 

The boy, Luke, looked up at Vader. By the light of the glow rods, Vader could see that he was trying to focus his eyes, still dazed from the baton. 

“Will you at least kill me quickly?” 

“What makes you think I want to kill you, young one?” 

Luke grabbed the unlit lightsaber hilt, waving it slowly. “I’m not stupid.”

“I wish to speak with you first. Come, you need medical attention,” Vader replied before hauling the boy up to stand. 

………….

Luke wasn’t sure if it was the hit to head or the sheer impossibility of what was happening, but the next hour seemed to float by in a haze. Darth Vader ( _ Darth kriffing Vader,  _ even out in Hutt Space, they were well aware of who he was) half supported him, half drug him through the streets of Mos Eisley. Vader being here at least confirmed one thing, the Empire was here because of the Rebel Alliance. The Emperor’s right hand man wouldn’t have come out to the outer rim for anything less. 

Vader wasn’t gentle with him but he wasn’t overly rough either, practically carrying Luke when it was clear his legs weren’t going to work right at that moment. He didn’t know how long it took, couldn’t really even get his bearings to figure out where in Mos Eisley he even  _ was _ before they reached a large shuttle craft. 

“Medic!” Vader barked out when they got close, and before Luke had even finished blinking there was a woman in front of him, sitting him down on one of the seats in the shuttle and getting to work. Luke knew the Empire had better quality medicine that what any average person out in Hutt Space had access to, but after the medic started working (occasionally telling him to follow her finger with his eyes or to look a certain direction) it was still almost alarming how quickly his head began to clear. Her movements became easier to follow, didn’t seem so fast to his eyes, and after what couldn’t have been too long she stepped away from him. 

“Mild concussion, Lord Vader. Should leave no lasting damage.”

“Thank you, dismissed.” 

Vader took him deeper into the shuttle. Luke had no idea of the layout but from the mechanical humming he could guess the storage chamber he motioned for Luke to go into was near the engine room. 

Surprisingly, his first question wasn’t about the Rebel Alliance. 

“Who trained you?” 

“Trained me?” There were several things that question could mean and Luke wanted clarification before he gave away too much information. 

“In the ways of the Force.” 

“It’s been mostly trial and error for the past few years.” Luke deliberately kept his answer vague, although it was true. Ben Kenobi had left Tatooine a few months ago but even still he hadn’t shown Luke much more than the basics. 

Even though the mask Vader wore was impassive, Luke got the impression that Vader was very aware Luke was being deliberately vague. 

“That much is obvious in the way you fight. A jedi wouldn’t have condoned using the Force in that way.” 

Luke didn’t know what that meant. 

“There are no jedi on Tatooine anymore, but yes, one did teach me the basics. I’m not a jedi sympathizer by any means.” 

“I’m surprised a jedi would leave you to your own devices.” 

“He was old. And tired. And said he’d already lost one padawaan, he didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.” That was the truth, had been Ben’s reason for keeping what training he did give Luke light. “If I’m honest, I think I’m better off for it. He didn’t try to push me into any jedi teachings.”

“But still left you with a lightsaber.”

“I wouldn’t have let him go without giving it to me. It’s all I’ve got left of my father.” 

Now Vader looked down at the lightsaber still in Luke’s hand. Luke held it out to him, knowing he’d just take it anyway and it would be better not to do anything that could be called resisting. 

Vader took it and just stared at it for several long moments. Luke heard the man’s respirator resist as he took in one long breath, something that Luke couldn’t quite name filling the room. 

“What…” Vader seemed to be trying to gather his thoughts. “What is your name?” 

“Luke Skywalker. My father was Anakin Skywalker.” 

Vader was quiet for several long (so long) moments. He could feel Vader reaching out in the Force for his mind, but didn’t react. Despite him telling Vader that he wasn’t a jedi sympathizer, he knew there was little reason for the man to believe him and he didn’t want to make his undoubted execution any worse. 

But Vader didn’t say anything else about Anakin Skywalker. When he next spoke his voice wasn’t soft, Luke didn’t think the vocoder would allow it to be soft, but there was less of a bite, a command, to it: 

“And how did someone so young get involved with a slave rebellion?” 

That took him by surprise, for all he tried not to show it. “I was ten when I found out who my father was, really was. He was born a slave, set free by the jedi, and separated from his mother for the rest of their lives. I guess that was when I started paying attention. And I decided that I wanted to keep other families from having to suffer the same fate.”

“When did you begin your training in the Force?” 

“A few years ago. There was a man who knew my father who told me about the Force, the jedi. He taught me a little bit, and after that I began trying to figure it out on my own.”

“I’m surprised a jedi didn’t try to train you to be a jedi.”

“I think he thought about it, when we first started, but I didn’t let him and he didn’t put up too much of a protest.” Luke could hear Vader’s silent question without the man even having to say it. “Even though my father was a jedi… they could have easily freed my grandmother as well. They didn’t. They could have helped the other slaves, and they didn’t. I won’t be a part of an organization that is so willing to turn a blind eye. From what I understand they didn’t even let my father see my grandmother until she died.” 

Vader paused for a moment, not nearly so long as before. 

“The Emperor would demand you executed. I believe that would be a waste. I would train you as my apprentice.” 

Luke thought about that. Vader very likely meant that if Luke  _ didn’t  _ join him, he’d be executed. Luke wasn’t necessarily the leader of the slave rebellion, they deliberately didn’t name a de facto leader for multiple reasons, but Luke was one of the members who did the most planning, was part of the most operations. If he were dead it would set the rest of the rebellion back by a lot. He couldn’t do much if he was gone from the planet, either, but certainly more than if he were dead. 

“I accept, under one condition.” 

“Which is?” 

“Help me end the Hutts. I know the Empire has no alliance with them, more like a tentative truce. I know there’s slavery throughout the Empire and I’m not okay with it but I also know that you probably can’t openly oppose it. But you could oppose the Hutts.” 

He could feel Vader in his mind again. For several long moments they were both silent as Vader looked for whatever he was after. 

Finally Vader spoke:

“I accept your terms.” 


	5. Where Darth Vader has a revelation on the Death Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader was standing behind a troublesome young senator when he realized what he'd been missing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I'm gonna be honest, I'm still not sure if I should post this? This is very short and I'm not completely sure it's coherent. It started out as me writing down my train of thought while in the middle of a depressive episode and grew from there. My document title for this is just "DARTH VADER AND THE EXISTENTIAL DREAD". I dunno, I see Vader as someone with depression and that's make me empathize. Also I kinda made some stuff up with the Force based on what I know from canon and what is regularly done in fanfics, and this is from Vader's pov so it's his thought train, not mine. 
> 
> Also I wanted to write a good ol' "Vader realizes early" au.

In the nearly twenty years since he’d become Darth Vader, Vader had learned much. The Dark Side of the Force was… it was not easy, it would never be  _ easy  _ but it was easier to slide into in a way that the teachings of the Jedi had not been for his former self. It was easier to acknowledge and embrace his pain rather than try to repress it, let his emotions swirl around him, course through him, rather than trying to stifle them and bring them to heel in a vague attempt at emotionless peace. None of the Jedi had seemed to be skilled with emotionless peace, save for perhaps Yoda, but that hadn’t stopped them from looking down on Anakin for failing to contain his anger perhaps more openly than they themselves. Even now Vader still didn’t know what they had expected from his former self, throwing a former slave onto a battlefield and expecting him to just be able to have peace. But now Darth Vader did not need to contain his anger, repress his pain. No, now he used his anger and pain as a tool; a well-sharpened tool that scraped away both those that were a threat to his power, and the ever-growing apathy looming like a steadily widening chasm inside him. 

He’d wanted power to protect  _ her _ , give her the galaxy because she was still the embodiment of  _ goodness  _ in his eyes, and now she was gone. She was gone, their child was gone, and he had no one left to even pretend to care about. In the beginning he thought he might bring the galaxy to some sort of justice, and he’d focused on anger to drive him towards that goal but now… now he was only angry because that was the only emotion other than rigid professionalism he knew how to show. He allowed his master to wrap him up in political games for the sake of keeping his mind away from the biting, gnawing, thought that all the power he had gained was pointless in the face of no one to use it for. The focus of his purpose was gone and now he had no real purpose in life. If he kept himself distracted then the thought stayed at bay. Allow the distraction to become the focus, the pursuit, in an attempt at forgetting because the alternative was ceasing to be entirely. Because the Force seemed to be telling him that there was only this path through the void of space no matter how much he might try to steer in another direction. So he stopped trying. There were many times that he wanted to allow himself to die. Especially in the beginning, there were so many times when he flew in battle that he realized how easy it would be to crash, to cease to be entirely and bring himself some sort of peace in that way. But the idea, no matter how logical it might seem at times, was still daunting and he always adjusted his course in spite of himself. He felt as though the Force would still want him to atone for all the wrong he’d caused even after his death. And he was not ready to see what more it would take from him.

One thing he had not learned much about in the twenty long years was Force connections. He knew the connection to his Master well enough, biting into him and festering like a wretched parasite. It faded with distance, lack of concentration, but it was always there. Not dead and rotting but alive and burrowing like a malicious insect seeking to eat him from the inside out. But there was something else, wholly different from that. He could feel it in the depths of his soul. Not like there was a piece of him missing, no; he was a whole person, his own person. But like every part of him was waiting. Like he was holding out his hands into the vast nothing and waiting for something to grasp onto them. Reaching into the mist of the Force and knowing with certainty that there was someone on the other side, but not knowing when or how they would take his hand. That, he did not have answers for. 

On the Death Star was where it happened. 

He’d long suspected Leia Organa was Force-sensitive. The Force hummed around her like it was waiting for her to grab it, though if she knew how to use it she was hiding it extremely well, better than anyone her age would be able to, and he’d never tried to prove it. Something about her taunted him, like she was the answer to a question he didn’t know he was supposed to be asking, and for that reason alone he’d avoided the young senator. But on the Death Star, when she was directly between him and his plans, avoiding was impossible. 

He realized what the question was, the one that she was the answer to, as the Death Star fired on Alderaan. Disbelief, guilt, and sheer unadulterated terror shone from her like a bright star and with it her presence in the Force slammed into Vader like the heat from Tatooine’s suns. The realization that he knew her, the feeling of Padme, and the understanding that she was the child he’d felt in Padme’s womb hit him at once. The horror of knowing that he’d just tortured his own daughter for information came not a moment after. For all that his hands were not his own flesh anymore and had not been for at least nineteen years he still felt Padme’s throat beneath them, manipulating the Force like his own hands as the air left her body. 

Leia did not make a sound, she did not shed a tear, but Vader had to practically carry her back to her cell. For her dignity he did his best to hide that she wasn’t walking on her own. Tarkin had scheduled her for execution but Vader had time to plan how to take his daughter to safety without alerting Tarkin, who would no doubt go running back to Palpatine. 

He was holding out his hand in the mist of the Force, but Leia didn’t know yet that she could take it. 

The Force only held more surprises. 

The break-in was annoying at best, but Vader could feel Kenobi’s presence in the Force and it ignited a rage in him like he hadn’t felt in a long time. Kenobi was responsible for this, he knew it, and worst of all Kenobi wouldn’t see that he was to blame because he would spin the story from his  _ point of view _ as if that excused any of it! Kenobi had no doubt spirited his daughter away as a newborn, and the idea that Pa- that the love of his life (why couldn’t he even think her name??) had died alone and terrified for her baby was inexcusable. Because she would not have let that baby out of her arms while she had breath in her body. And his daughter, growing up with no idea of who she was, with the Organas, when she should have been at  _ his side _ … 

He almost moved away from the holocams a moment too soon. Any faster and he would not have heard it. 

“ _ I’m Luke Skywalker and I’m here to rescue you!”  _

Oh. Now that was an answer to a question that he hadn’t even known to ask. Vader reached out with his senses. He found his daughter easily (how could he not? She was part of Her.) and with her… 

The boy, Luke, was his son. The Force sang with it, and he was an absolute beacon. Unfocused, untrained (how could he not be trained?!) but every bit as bright as the suns on Tatooine. 

The rage that had ignited inside him at the presence of Kenobi begged to be unleashed. He wanted to find Kenobi and make him  _ pay for this _ . His children had grown up without knowing him, without  _ knowing each other _ and Kenobi had left their mother to die. He had to atone for this. But to do so would mean to lose track of his children and he would not lose them again. 

New purpose in mind, Vader set off to locate his children. If Tarkin had an issue with Vader taking his daughter, he would rip the man apart before he could voice it. 

The children panicked when they saw him. Of course they would, they didn’t yet know that he was their father, that they had nothing to fear from him, that he would bring the galaxy to heel and lay it at their feet. His daughter’s anger very nearly matched what he had felt earlier, and his son put up a valiant effort to protect her. But for all that they would have given non Force-sensitives trouble, they were no match for him.

As he carried his unconscious children back to his quarters he felt Kenobi flee the Death Star, but even now he could not find the will to care. Not now, when he had something much more important at his side. 

Not long after, the mist in the Force would dissipate, and their souls would connect. 


	6. In which there is a haunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke investigates an old jedi temple, but it's a lot older than he thought. And not nearly as empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick little thing, I meant to get this up a bit earlier but it's still technically October for my timezone. Happy Halloween, y'all!

_ The earth is soaked in blood.  _

_ It seeps through the cracks in the temple’s foundation.  _

Luke woke up with a gasp, looking around quickly when he realized he didn’t remember falling asleep. There was nothing there, at least not physically, just the rotting wooden remains of what looked like old beds, fabric that had long been worn to almost nothing by time. But nothing else, no indication of what the room he was in used to be, no marks on the walls or even scuffs on the floor. Impersonal and silent like what he had seen of the underground temple so far, all illuminated by the light of his glow rod. 

He was groggy, like he’d slept for hours, but a quick check of his chrono told him he’d only been out about thirty minutes. He still didn’t remember falling asleep, but he did remember coming into the room, so that was at least something. He still hadn’t found anything, but then again, he still didn’t know what he was looking for, either. 

There wasn’t a jedi alive to tell him anything anymore, and Ben’s Force ghost was maddeningly silent. To be fair, Luke had yelled at him the last time he’d shown himself. Luke was able to use his prosthetic almost as well as his flesh hand by now, and he’d compartmentalized everything that was Vader and all it implied, to avoid thinking about it. He knew it probably wasn’t healthy, but at least for now the nightmares (holding a red lightsaber with blood all over his hands and clothes and no knowledge of who or why or how) the nightmares had faded. He didn’t know why he’d insisted on coming to this old temple as soon as he had, but he wanted to find something of the jedi for himself, something he could piece together without having to worry about the information being filtered through hero-worship stories and  _ certain points of view.  _

Something to distract from the fact that Han was still gone. 

There was something in this temple. Luke wasn’t sure if he was meant to find it or not, but the idea of it wouldn’t leave his head, burrowing into the back of his mind like a physical presence.It became another fact of life the longer he was here. Luke was alone, Han was gone, Vader was his father, and there was something in the temple. But for all that he knew it was there, he couldn’t sense it, what it was or where in the temple. The Force was strange here… almost like mud. It wasn’t strong with the Force or absent from it, but when Luke reached for the Force here he felt like he was grabbing at something he couldn’t see. Or grabbing through something murky and churning. 

It was like the whole temple was waiting. There were footsteps he just barely couldn’t hear, the suggestion of whispers, the idea of hands running along the walls. Once or twice Luke thought he heard music, some sort of ancient flute, but it was gone as soon as he tried to focus on it. In the entrance hall there was a chrono powered by water, still keeping time even though no one had been here for centuries to need it. Sometimes he thought he could hear it dripping even though he was nowhere within hearing distance of the entrance hall. 

(Something told him it wasn’t water but he didn’t want to think about it.) 

Parts of the temple had high vaulted ceilings, others so low even he almost had to crouch. They flowed from one to the other fairly simply, but Luke still couldn’t tell why such a difference. High-ceilinged halls gave way to rooms and halls so small Luke couldn’t imagine many species had been able to move through them easily. Luke caught a glimpse of his chrono and had to double-take. He thought it had only been a few minutes, he wasn’t far from the room he’d woken up in, but the chrono said hours had gone by. 

Sometimes he saw carvings. Some were crude, obviously letters, writing, but in something different from (much older than) Arburesh. Some were extremely detailed, but those were nonsensical; finely carved patterns or optical illusions that Luke couldn’t see the beginning or end of. One went so deep into the wall that Luke thought he might be able to stick his whole hand inside, but he didn’t dare try it. 

He could hear the ticking of the water chrono again, but this time it sounded like fingernails tapping a table. He got the impression that something was waiting for him. Another fact. Luke was alone, Vader was his father, and there was something waiting for him in the temple. He didn’t know if it was an ally or enemy or if that even mattered. This temple was old, far older than Luke had thought originally, maybe even older than Master Yoda, and it was possible that this thing didn’t even consider if something was a friend or foe. 

_ Blood seeps through the cracks in the temple’s foundation. _

_ It waits, jaws dripping, at the edge of time.  _

Luke shuddered. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to find whatever was waiting. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave without finding something. Something to show him what he was supposed to be doing next, give him an idea of where he was supposed to stand in all this. Now he could see the shape of the horror that threatened to overwhelm him and he wanted either a confirmation or a denial from something that had no stake in his future.

Because this temple had no stake in his future, it had been built long before living memory and would stand long after any remains of him were gone. 

He reached out and touched the wall as he walked through yet another hallway. He got the impression of a place that used to be bursting with life. It wasn’t a vision, he couldn’t see anything, but he got the impression of younglings laughing as they ran through these same hallways. 

Something other than the passage of time had made them leave this place, he knew that as well. 

He kept walking. There was no noise here, not even the faint dripping of the water chrono in the entrance. For a few moments he thought perhaps he was just that deep underground, the temple going deep into the earth like a mineral mine (the earth that was wet with blood and home to something far more ancient than he could comprehend) but his own footsteps were muffled, the sound didn’t reach far. The carvings had more of a shape to them, but in an abstract way. Something he didn’t want to stay around and puzzle through until he’d found what he needed. 

Luke walked, heading, he assumed, deeper underground. He walked both alone and not alone, independently and in step with something he didn’t know how to identify. He went in and out of rooms, rooms that had once been what looked like offices or training rooms, bedrooms with nearly gone wood and cloth and filled with the smell of rot and decay. It wasn’t a bad smell, it was more earthy than anything, but it was overpowering and the strength of it made him want to gag. Remnants of lives lived and, surely by now, lost. 

Eventually he found a library. There were books, flimsi books, and stone tablets and the remains of what might have been wood but were now lost. The stone tablets were small, about the size of a datapad, and as he picked one up he realized that they weren’t truly stone, but dried clay. The clay tablets he couldn’t read, they were written in a way different (older than) Auburesh, and he had no hope of figuring them out. But the flimsi books, those he could read. 

It was slow going: he could read just fine but he was more suited to datapads with their standardized type and (usually) shorter words. Some of these books were neatly printed but others were a near-hopeless scrawl. But he read. 

He read without considering the passage of time, if time even mattered here. He read and read and became part of the library, the ghosts of jedi long gone. He didn’t hear the dripping of the water chrono or the satisfied clicking of something much older, deeper in the temple compound. Luke read like he was hypnotized, and perhaps he was, dropping the already thin shields he had worked on with Yoda (this was older than Yoda, far older) and opening himself up to the wellspring that was the Force and shining like a beacon for the whole galaxy to see. 

He didn’t pay attention to any of it, not a couple of sith lords taking notice, someone like him, systems away, feeling belonging but not knowing why, and not something old and deep and sticky with long dried blood making its way up out of the abyss that was its home. 

He was light, he was brilliant, he was a beacon. 

He was unable to hide. 

He was so absorbed in the text (hypnotized, maybe) that he didn’t hear what he had thought was dripping but was really the clicking of nails, the clacking of sharp teeth growing closer. It had been without fresh food for  _ so long _ for all that time didn’t matter in this place, and it was going to  _ savor _ this. 

He didn’t hear the resolute noise of swift footsteps, following more or less the same path he had taken, the crackle of coms trying to find a signal underground. Nor could he hear the hum of an all too familiar lightsaber igniting as the user understood the shape of the temple’s horror. He didn’t sense anything as two beings nearly raced towards him, from opposite directions and with opposite intentions.

He didn’t notice anything until he felt something on his shoulder, and came back to the present. The sound of a respirator, and the sound of something growling. 

“Luke!”


	7. Where there's a monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much Libby, for encouraging me to write this! I wasn't too sure at first how I wanted to continue it but once I got going I became a little more sure of myself.
> 
> This is a continuation of the previous chapter! 
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy!

It was a wholly unfamiliar feeling, the notion that he could have died without paying attention. The feeling that he might die wasn’t unfamiliar, but usually when Luke felt it it was when he was full of adrenaline; attacks from Tuskens, flying his x-wing in the middle of a battle, facing down the bulk of an AT-AT. But as Luke snapped back into the present, his brain registered all that his senses and the Force were telling him, and he translated that into action, it wasn’t adrenaline. It wasn’t the familiar feeling of the fear and kind of excitement of looking what could be his death in the face and knowing that he would go down fighting; it was a cold ball of anxiety in his stomach followed by an all-consuming dread. 

The anxiety, the panic, made him draw on the Force as he dove out of the way, and before he realized what he was doing he was most of the way across the library, just avoiding slamming into a shelf carved in stone that jutted out from the wall. He immediately whirled around to look at what was happening, the shape of everything somewhat illuminated by his dropped glow rod and his father’s lit lightsaber. But he’d been down here long enough, his eyes adjusted to only having his glow rod to see by, that he could see what was going on fairly well. 

His father had his lightsaber lit and in a position where he could easily block or swing, but he wasn’t using it to fight so much as keep a defensive stand-by ready. The thing that lived in the temple wasn’t completely a physical being. It was in the sense that it had a form to it but the form wasn’t all there was to it. Maybe it had once been a krayt dragon, maybe it never had been. It seemed to hold that shape more often than not but it still twisted and writhed into something that Luke would never in his life assume to be a krayt. But even when it most looked like a krayt it was still wrong in a way that Luke doubted it had ever been one now that he could see it properly. 

“Luke, stay over there!” Vader called to him, and while the vocoder didn’t allow for much emotion, through the Force Luke could feel an unmistakable wave of fear. Not of the thing, but for Luke. 

The thing clearly wanted to get to Luke, but it also had definitely recognized Vader as a threat. It hissed, clicking its teeth in apparent frustration, or at least Luke thought it was a hiss. The noise was closer to a scream than anything. Luke could sense rather than see their fight in the Force. The thing held most of itself in the shape of the not-krayt but tendrils of it lashed out and slashed at his father’s Force presence like an animal would use its claws. 

Vader was immensely powerful in the Force but this thing was older than anything known. The tendrils crept around Vader, moving like hair in water, searching for a weakness. Eventually, Luke just knew, it would find one. They had to leave, and soon, but being able to leave depended on being able to knock the thing out, even temporarily, and Luke knew, likely just as well as his father did, that Vader would be unable to do that on his own. 

And it wanted Luke. The not-Krayt head wasn’t looking in his direction but Luke could feel that he was the real focus of its attention. It was searching for a way to distract- distract Vader, distract Luke, so it could smother and  _ feed _ . 

Luke closed his eyes. He closed his eyes and began to reach out, feel the temple. The Force was muddy here, but he reached through it, unable to really see but still able to search with his hands and explore and feel through the mud and murk the Force was clouded in. The temple was mostly stone, carved into by the jedi who had built it… he wasn’t sure they called themselves jedi back then. Stone that was cold so far underground and yet it was soaked in the sweat and tears of the previous generations. 

_ Blood seeps through the cracks in the stone.  _

The thought came back, unbidden. Luke suddenly realized he wasn’t sure which way the blood was flowing. Wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t flowing both directions. The temple was stone, but also salt and iron, laughter, camaraderie… and pain. He could hear the dripping from the water chrono again, just in his head this time. He wasn’t entirely sure it hadn’t always been only in his head from the moment he stepped into the temple. He had passed old rooms full of decaying old wood and cloth on his way down here, and now he knew that in rooms further down it wasn’t only wood and cloth. Most had long gone dry, skin not much different than the remnants of their clothes, their mouths still open in horror as they realized what they had been afraid of had no true shape and yet were compelled to still try and find a way to describe it. Some had not been here as long, alone like him and searching for answers, tears long dried on decomposing skin. 

He could feel his own life force, his father, the troopers and Imperials who were boarding transport shuttles, ordered away by their commander who realized what he would be dragging them into. 

Luke would not let any of them join the dead trapped in the temple. 

But if this thing wanted Light, it would get it. 

Luke opened his eyes and stepped forward. The thing did not move, his father did not move. Luke took a deep breath and let it out; he was ready. He could do this. 

The feeling that he could die was back, but rather than the punch of anxiety or the pulse of adrenaline Luke could feel his heart pounding with the resolute thump of determination. 

The thing realized that something was different, and abruptly refocused on Luke, the not-Krayt false head turning to him. It let out a hiss that sounded like the shrieking of metal on metal, and Vader stepped toward Luke, trying to shield him from this thing’s attention. It made Luke’s heart clench-  _ this  _ was what he had dreamed of for years and years as he looked up at the Tatooine sky: standing next to his father. A father who worried for him, a worry born out of love, however deeply buried under years of pain and training. 

Luke wasn’t completely sure what happened. The thing had no shape and Luke didn’t try to force it into one. He couldn’t kill it: it was older than anything Luke could think of, maybe even older than this planet itself, but he didn’t need to. He just needed to keep it from going after him, after Vader, and after the Imperials on the surface long enough for them to get off-planet. The only way he could describe what he was doing was forcing his own light, his own essence in the Force, into the thing. Encouraging it and then forcing it to gorge itself on energy. 

The thing didn’t seem to realize until it was too late, for one second there was that metal on metal shriek and then some kind of pop in the Force and just… nothing. Luke couldn’t feel it anymore. Not in a way that said it was dead but for now, at least, it was gone. 

And Luke promptly collapsed. 

His Father made a sort of yell of surprise but caught him, and Luke didn’t protest being carried. Exhaustion flowed through Luke like air and he had to actively fight the urge to just close his eyes and rest. But he couldn’t, not yet. 

The temple was now completely silent. Not the natural silence of an abandoned place, but a waiting, dreading silence. A deep breath before everything began again. Vader’s strides were long, quick, but the sound didn’t carry as far as Luke would have expected it to. The thing was still there, regrouping, calculating… 

But not fast enough. Luke must have drifted because the next thing he knew he was snapping back into awareness as they came out into the open air. Outside of the temple he was suddenly aware that he was hungry, far more hungry than he thought he should be, and he suddenly had a feeling like he had been inside for a lot longer than he thought. 

And then there was a sudden spike of fear as he realized that he was firmly in the hands of the Imperials, and was in no shape to do anything about it. 

_ You will not be harmed _ . 

Luke heard his father’s voice over their bond… a tiny thing, thin and fragile. New. 

But he wanted desperately to believe him. 


	8. Where there's comfort even at Bespin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another ESB, Bespin, au! This is -extremely- self-indulgent. I wanted to write something that was just comforting, where Luke and Vader aren't at odds. I worked on this while I was coming down from various panic attacks and it actually really helped me get out of my head. All that to say that this really is extremely self indulgent and I hope y'all like it. 
> 
> Warnings for descriptions of panic attacks and traumatic limb loss.

_ “Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father.” _

_ “He told me enough! He told me you killed him!” _

_ “NO.  _ I  _ am your father.”  _

Five thousand emotions flowed through Luke all at once. They weren’t even thoughts, really, nothing coherent, just feelings. Vader was still talking… talking about ruling the galaxy together… but Luke couldn’t even hear it. Shock and horror and that horrible, terrible,  _ knowing _ were dominant and Luke couldn’t even process what was happening. There was an all-consuming ringing in his ears, and he could only stare at Vader wide-eyed and silent before he began to shake. An involuntary, uncontrollable shaking followed by a scream that wouldn’t come out. It wasn’t the Force, it was adrenaline, and the shaking loosened his grip on the gantry, and Vader  _ dove  _ to catch him before he could fall.

Durasteel-ridgid arms practically crushed Luke against Vader’s chest plate and Luke was still frozen. His father… all those times Luke had looked up to the Tatooine sky secretly hoping that his father was out there and would come and take him away despite what his aunt and uncle said… all those times in just the past few years he had held his father’s lightsaber and dreamed about being like the man who had wielded it. Darth Vader, terror of the galaxy, was his father. 

And they’d known! Obi-wan and Yoda had known, the Force sang the horrible truth of that just as much as it sang the truth of his father. Obi-wan and Yoda had known and they hadn’t told him. They’d trained Luke to fight and never- oh Suns… they’d wanted him to kill his own father. 

_ Luke _

Luke jerked his head up, immediately meeting the red lenses of Vader’s mask. He knew it was Vader’s voice in his head for all that the voice was different from the vocoder. 

_ Luke, I need you to slow your breathing _ . 

Panic coursed through Luke like his own blood and he couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe even though he was breathing  _ too fast _ and he was  _ missing his hand _ and- 

Vader’s hands were gentle but heavy, as one supported his back and one came to rest on his chest and Luke only now realized that they were both sitting on the metal catwalk. Some sort of mental tap through the Force got his attention and Vader let him listen to the sound of the respirator. 

_ Breathe with me. Slowly and deeply, that’s it, Luke, breathe with me.  _

Luke did manage to slow his breathing, concentrating on matching his inhales and exhales with the respirator. He felt numb, like he was in a daze, and it seemed like he was moving in slow motion as, after a few minutes, Vader helped him stand. 

_ I’m taking you to get medical treatment. You’ll be on my ship but in my private quarters where no one will harm you. _

Medical treatment… Luke knew he needed it even as his heart began to speed up once more at the thought of going anywhere near an Imperial starship like this. He couldn’t really do anything to protest anyway. He was in no state to fight and even if he were, the saber was gone, and his hand… oh Suns his hand. Why had Vader, why had his own father- 

_ That was an accident, little one. I swear to you that you will not be harmed any further. _

Oh… Vader was reading his thoughts. Or maybe he was projecting. His mental shields always did collapse under stress. But that meant… 

_ We’ll talk about it later. For now, I need you to sleep. _

The Force suggestion was gentle, but insistent, and Luke felt himself slump into Vader’s arms just before he lost consciousness. 

....

When Luke woke up the first thing he noticed was the light. He’d expected the harsh stark white light of most medbays he’d seen, but the lights of this room were softer, gentler. The next was that it was mostly quiet, nothing but the soft beeping and gentle hum of a few monitors. No talking, not even soft whispers, and no footsteps or droid wheels: it seemed like Luke was alone. Opening his eyes proved that he was right. The medbay was still the same white of every other professional medbay he’d been in, but the lights were turned down. Luke didn’t know if they were just like that or if it had been done for him specifically and the implications behind the second were still something he didn’t want to think about.

The medbay was small- not claustrophobically small but it was a private medbay, it didn’t need to be large, and while the Executor was the size of a large city, there still was not room for wasted space on a Star Destroyer. For a moment Luke just laid there and focused on the soft beeping of the monitors and the gentle but omnipresent hum that belonged to the engines and systems of the Executor herself. He laid there and took stock of himself. He wasn’t tired like he had been, his heart was beating at a regular calm rate, and there was such a lack of pain in spite of everything that had happened that Luke had no doubt there were some very good painkillers in his system. Despite those, though, there was just a feeling of something off, something different, something missing. 

His hand. His right hand was what was missing. 

The beeping of one of the monitors picked up in speed as Luke began to think. The weight of everything was coming back to him and he did not want to process this right now. He didn’t think he wanted to try and process it ever, but it was either process it or let it drive him mad. Vader was his father; Vader had cut off his hand but said it was an accident; Yoda and Ben had known Vader was his father and had wanted him to kill Vader anyway on top of keeping it from him. Han was in the hands of a bounty hunter, Leia and Chewbacca were gone… 

And Luke was in the hands of the Imperials. 

Several more of the monitors had picked up speed and Luke nearly startled when the door slid open. He expected to see Vader, even without feeling his presence in the Force, because who else would it be? To his surprise, instead of Vader there was a man he didn’t know. He didn’t know any of the imperials but he was sure he’d never even seen this man before, not even in holos. He was about Luke’s height, pale, and wearing a green navy officers uniform- rank badge identified him as an admiral. Luke sat upright, curling his legs close to the rest of his body defensively. For a moment the two just stared at each other, both of them wary. 

Then the admiral seemed to remember himself and stepped fully into the medbay, the door sliding shut behind him. He held himself in an unassuming way, but also had an air of quiet determination and Luke was plenty wary already. 

“Commander Skywalker, I’m Admiral Piett; your father sent me to check on you.” His voice was steady; quiet, but no hesitation. 

“Check that I wasn’t trying to escape, you mean?” 

“It’s highly unlikely you could get out of this room if you tried, Commander, but no; Lord Vader sensed,” and here there was a slight pause, like Piett was still grappling with that whole thing, “that you were both conscious and anxious. He’s off the ship, so here I am.” 

Luke didn’t miss that Piett was apparently a man Vader trusted enough with both the knowledge of who Luke was to him, and to ‘check on him’ while Vader was, apparently, not within reach. Based on what he knew of Vader that seemed to be something very rare, and now he had more questions than answers. But he had a feeling he’d get none of those answers from the Admiral. 

“How long was I asleep?” Luke asked instead. 

“Roughly two standard days.” 

Two days… Stars, but they could be anywhere by now. Not just Chewbacca and Leia, but the star destroyer, too, and he didn’t know if they were still tracking them.

Either Piett could read minds, or Luke’s worry was visible, because Piett offered up more information:

“I won’t tell you which system we’re in currently, but we stopped pursuing the Corellian freighter once we had you on board.” 

So at least Leia and Chewie were safe. Safe and probably looking for Han, which they could do without worrying about the Executor bearing down on them. There was that, at least. 

“Where’s Va- my father?” 

“He should be back on board before the end of this day cycle.”

Luke couldn’t get much of a read on Piett, the man must have an impressive Sabacc face, but his voice was soft and not unkind. Trusted and capable or not, Vader had still sent him to check on Luke and that had to mean something. And he had called Luke by his rank, when most imperials wouldn’t have, and he didn’t seem hostile, and… and Luke just really wanted to be able to ask someone who wasn’t Vader.

“Do… do you know what’s going to happen with me?” 

Piett gave him a small smile that looked like it was intended to be comforting:

“You’ll get a prosthetic in a day or two: your father has been modifying it and checking it to make sure there are no glitches.”

Modifying it, implying that Vader didn’t think whatever prosthetic was available was good enough on its own and fixing that, and checking for glitches… it didn’t confirm anything, but it sounded like remorse. Like cutting off his hand really had been an accident. 

Luke nodded, thanked him. After a few moments with the beeping of the monitors back to a slow, steady, rate, and Luke’s impending panic attack aborted for now, Piett left. 

Luke wasn’t sure exactly how long it took Vader to come back because he fell asleep again not long after Piett had gone. An uneasy sleep, but sleep to be sure. But when he did wake up, it was gentle, calm. A sort of light tapping through the Force, the bond he shared with Vader, tiny and new as it was. 

_ I do not wish to startle you, little one. I am on board again and coming to check on you.  _

Luke did appreciate the warning. Even with the new information, that Vader might actually see him as a son and he might not be dead by morning, he still couldn’t quite be sure what his reaction would have been if he’d awoken to Vader in the room with no warning. 

Now that the chase was done, that Luke was well and truly caught, he could feel more of Vader’s presence in the Force rather than the dread he was so used to accompanying the realization that he was nearby. And what an enormous presence! Luke didn’t have to look for him in the Force, he could feel him without having to try at all. The Force, not just the Dark Side but the Force as a whole, swirled around him like it was dancing and his power was… Luke had never felt anything like that before in his life. Yoda had been powerful and Luke had felt him after he took the time to try but Vader just… he was like a supernova. 

Even though Luke was well and truly caught and, according to Piett, didn’t have anything to worry about, he couldn’t help that flutter of residual alarm that burst up in him for just a moment when the medbay door slid open once again to reveal Vader on the other side. He had to take a second to calm himself down before that alarm could turn into anything else, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths. 

Only when he opened them again did Vader approach him slowly. 

“I’m sorry,” Luke felt compelled to apologize, “it’s an old instinct.”

“I haven’t given you a reason to feel otherwise, it is understandable,” Vader told him. The voice coming from the vocoder was even, but through the Force Luke could feel something almost like an apology. “In time, hopefully…” 

Luke nodded, “in time.” 

For a moment they just stayed like that, Vader standing near the bed watching Luke while Luke watched him. It was a surprisingly comfortable silence, and Luke was loathe to break it, but there was so much he wanted, needed, to know. 

“When did you find out?” Luke finally asked. How long had he known about Luke?

“Several months after the Death Star. A bounty hunter told me your name.” Vader’s, his father’s voice was surprisingly soft. “I’ve been searching for you ever since.”

The Force rang with the truth of that. 

“Why did no one tell me?” 

“Very few people know who I used to be.”

“But Obi-wan and Yoda…” 

There was a soft static sound through the vocoder that sounded like the machine’s approximation of a sigh. 

“That is a very complicated answer, little one. I will answer it, I promise you, but I ask that you give me time.”

Luke was trapped on an Imperial super star destroyer, he had nothing but time. He nodded. “Admiral Piett said that you were modifying a prosthetic?” 

It was a precursor to a question he couldn’t bring himself to ask just yet. Both of them knew what the question was, it hung in the air above them like a physical presence, but Luke was still too nervous to voice it. 

His father didn’t force him to. “Yes, I am. Come with me.” 

Luke didn’t know how his father could make durasteel gentle, but his hand on Luke’s shoulder was, in fact, gentle. Vader guided him out of the medbay and into another room that appeared to be a sort of study, but there were small tools neatly arranged all over the desk, a small mechanical piece off to the side. What really grabbed Luke’s attention though, was settled gently on a cloth at the front of the desk... a metal hand. 

Luke approached the desk slowly, not sure if he was excited or appalled. It was very close to a human hand, bones of metal and tendons and muscles of wires and chips, and Luke didn’t know how to feel. 

“The medics are preparing synthskin for it,” his father’s voice was almost quiet. “I thought the synthskin might be less of a shock.” 

“Yes,” Luke said, but his voice sounded like it was far away. Absently, he could feel his heart beginning to pound, his head felt like he was in the upper atmosphere of a planet, like all the blood was draining out of it… 

Vader grabbed something off the desk and hurried Luke out of the room. 

“Breathe, little one,” he told Luke, his arm poised to catch Luke should he collapse. Which might be a very real possibility. “Match my breathing.” 

Vader steered him into a sitting room that looked like it had never been touched and settled Luke onto a couch. With Vader’s hand on Luke’s chest, and Vader guiding Luke’s hand to his own respirator so that Luke could feel the hum, Luke focused on his breathing. Gentle and steady. Inhale and exhale with his father’s respirator. 

It took a moment, but after a while Luke was calm, present, not in danger of collapsing. For a moment though, he still didn’t move, just sat there with his eyes closed and focused on what he could feel in the Force. His father’s presence was full of regret, sadness… 

“I never wanted this for you, Luke.” 

Luke believed him. 

The next few hours were something that Luke thought he’d never get to have. He sat curled up on the sofa, his father next to him in a chair that was designed a bit better to accommodate his own prosthetics, and the two of them talked mechanics. Vader had a datapad with the schematics for the prosthesis, and like this it was easier to detach. For right now it was easier to think about it as a machine and not what was going to be his hand. Luke had really only worked on starfighters, landspeeders, and basic farming equipment, and while various parts of the engines could be very small, the machinery for the hand was almost delicate, on a level he had no experience with. 

His father, however, did have experience with delicate work like this (which only made Luke want to ask more questions) and he explained it well. He related it to mechanics that Luke was much more familiar with, and Luke was surprised at how well it translated. After an hour or so, Luke thought he had a much better understanding of the modifications Vader was making to the prosthetic. But also… 

“You grew up on Tatooine?” 

His father’s voice was soft. “I didn’t want that for you, either, Luke.” 

Even without feeling his emotions in the Force, Luke would have believed him. 

… 

So much of the time before and after the surgery to attach the prosthetic was a blur, although that was just as much a product of Luke’s feelings about the prosthetic as it was the amount of medication in his system. Luke was at least glad he’d been out of it when Vader had had to take one of Palpatine’s transmissions. The aftermath had been bad enough, the Dark Side rolling through the Executor like a hurricane. When Vader had left the ship not long after, the absence of turmoil was, at first, calming, but Luke could admit to himself that it didn’t take long for the calm to transition into anxiety as Luke began to get a sense of it just being… too quiet. 

Luke wasn’t completely alone, at least. Vader’s personal medic, sworn to secrecy even though that hadn’t been an issue in the first place, came by often to check on him and begin physical therapy. They were quiet, but they were an absolute rock in the Force, steady and firm, and while they weren’t exactly warm, they treated him well. 

Admiral Piett, too, was an unexpected presence. As an admiral, he had to be busy, but he never showed it. He just showed up, usually with food or tea for Luke, and stayed until he was called away. He helped Luke with physical therapy sometimes, or just sat and talked with him. The admiral was a quiet man, but much warmer than Luke had expected him to be. Luke learned the man was from the Outer Rim as well, Axxlia, and had an equal amount of distaste for the Hutts. 

Luke stayed in his father’s quarters for now. Vader was avoiding making Luke’s presence known, since for others to know would likely end up with Palpatine knowing.

“You mean Palpatine doesn’t know I’m here?” 

“No. He would demand I bring you to him and I… I will not have you anywhere near him.” 

The anxiety rolling around in Luke’s stomach gentled, just a touch. 

Luke progressed further with physical therapy. Sometimes, when his father was away, it was with Admiral Piett and his father’s personal medic. They encouraged him in a way that, a few weeks ago, Luke would not have expected from any imperial, much less two people so close to Darth Vader. Now however… Luke would be lying if he said he didn’t like them. More often than not, though, Vader helped Luke through physical therapy. With his father, it was physical therapy with a healthy dose of training in the Force. Luke had been wary at first but it wasn’t... it wasn’t what he had expected. His father didn’t push him towards the Dark, he didn’t show any indication that that was what he wanted for Luke at all. 

Luke didn’t know what the catalyst was, or if this was just how Vader treated people who weren’t his enemies, but it was… nice. It was nice to learn new skills with the Force, in his own way, without being told to draw on the Dark side. It was nice to be in close quarters with his father and feel calm. It was nice to, when he woke up screaming from a nightmare, to have his father there in an instant, reassuring him that it had been a dream and helping him focus on his breathing. 

It made him feel like maybe they could get out of this alive, maybe even alive and happy, after years of feeling like he was always on the run, always looking over his shoulder. Not knowing what would happen when or how long this war would take and if he’d even live to see the other side of it. 

So when his father sat down with Luke while he ate dinner and started the conversation with:

“We need to decide what we’re going to do about the Emperor.”

Luke listened. 


End file.
